Tag Archives: without us

There is a difference between ABA and floor-time, and there is a difference in what we really can do for my Autistic peers and I who need to be able to live self-directed lives. We need to realize how much the autistic spectrum can relate to themselves and how non-autistic people can enter into the Autistic world. Being an Autistic person means so many things, but their are some non-autistic people who still do not get it. However, there are some non-autistic people who do get it.

This post is going to be a list of what non-autistic people can do to help the Autistic community better self-direct our lives:

1) Stop and think before giving advice or direction to an Autistic person when we have not even asked for the advice or direction
2) Teach any Autistic person from the time they are a child that they run their life
3) Makes sure any Autistic person takes responsibilities for what they do from the time they are a child
4) Always include any Autistic person in conversations about them, always remember ‘Nothing About us, without us’.
5) Never demand any Autistic person is doing something wrong and that they have to do it ‘your’ non-autistic way. Let us be who we are!
6) Allow any Autistic person to identify however we choose, not the way any non-autistic person wants from us, i.e. do not instruct person-first pathology language.
7) Autistic people want to stim to help us through our lives, never say ‘Quiet hands’.
8) Never assume any Autistic person who is echolalic does not have a voice, everyone has their own voice with our own thoughts, ideas, and expressions.
9) We are human, we all have free will, we all have free choices, and any Autistic person is able to live inclusively in the community as long as non-autistic people do not tell an Autistic person how to live their life.
10) Don’t assume any Autistic person does not know, we are more capable of understanding things than non-autistic people assume.
11) Autistic people who do have tics, are able to do things too, we have tics, but it does not mean we are anxious.
12) Autistic people have been stigmatized by the society as a whole by so many other cultures in society, do not make assumptions about our abilities or disabilities.
13) Bullying any Autistic person into silence to speak the way non-autistic people speak is taking away the rights every one in the human race has.
14) Social skills is a human experience everyone learns about each day, so stop insisting Autistic people need to learn social skills from a non-autistic person. Every one needs to learn the real social skills, not the gibberish that is taught to Autistic people every day. (no one is a social skills expert)
15) Autistic people need to know we can set our own boundaries and are taught that everyone has their own space from childhood to becoming an adult.
16) Stop harping and hovering over any Autistic person’s daily life and allow any one to make mistakes. If it feels good to an Autistic person, than work with that so that it works well in society even when an Autistic person who has sensory differences from non-autistic people in society.
17) Do not label any one with how they function, who is it to you as a non-autistic person to label any one as ‘low’ or ‘high’ functioning? Functioning labels are a way to stigmatize and hurt Autistic people.
18) Give us some time for our own life to make our own decisions and preserve self-determination.
19) Being Autistic means we are Human too which means we can decide our own destiny and think critically.
20) Let any Autistic person use AAC (Augmentative and Assistative Communication) when we want to use it to communicate with any one in the community regardless. Communication is key in our life too to allow our voices be heard!

There are probably more, but for now this is good enough!

I know I have not posted in a while, but I have been very busy with my first semester of graduate school at CUNY School of Professional Studies studying Disability studies.

By the way, check out my project from class at the website I created with my classmate, DISQUAKE!!